The Arizona sentinel., 1887-04-30
Yuma, Arizona,

Since the days of Noah, all great undertakings have brought to the front a greater or less number of doubting Thomases. Sympathy is leading characteristic of these, mol doubt well meaning, but short-sighted individuals. The antedeluvians sym patbized with and pitied Noah, for spending his time and money in such q foolish task. There never had been a flood and there never had been any necessity for an ark, and even if a food should come the ark wouldn't work, the machinery or something would giveway. Why not move along in the good old way without iHtroduc
 ing any innovations, or tempting na ture by constructing improvements on such a grand and substantial scale! in other words, bark canoe had answer
 ed their necessities for generations. and why not not stick, with leech- like tenacity to the old customs and traditions of their fathers. Such a waste of time and money was wrong, so they argued, besides, the money was liable to run short and capitalists were too sharp to "set 'em up" on such a fruitless job. So it has been in all ages and in all climes. So, to-day, we are not surprised, that ill the face of the gigantic strides which have been made in all those things which go to make up the civili- zation of the Nineteenth century, there are those who still sit astride ot the hobby-horse of lmpossibility and are ready to foret,l. disaste' to every laudable enterprise, and bestow their sympathy, unasked, upon those who give their time and means to the pros ecution of those enterprises. While this class of people worship at the shrine of impossibility and pour out their tears of pity upon its rude altars, they also claim prophetic power, and forecast dire calamity to every under taking whose magnitude surpasses their ordinary, everyday comprehen- sion. They are also firm believers iu chance. Accidents will happen,' ; and every successful termination of all enterprise upon which their prophetic finger had written failure, is ascribed
 to accident or chance, and will event
 ually terminate unfavorably. This is an age of wonderful achievements, and not of chance happenings. Franklin invaded the realms of the storm-king. tore the lightning from hls brow and caused it to play harnlessly at hi, feet: not by accident or chance. The electric spark is made to traverse the depths of the sea and bear it's messages from continent to continent, and yet. the seal Of impossibility was put upon 1t while the great work va' in pro
 gress and even after the final triumpl
 of that scheme its ultimate failure was!predicted. So. co, engineering skl l has torn asunder mountains, spammed rivers and perform d thousand other wonderful works while whole armies of croaks busiAd themselves Ein evil
 omened predictions concerning them.
 When the plains of Southern Califor
 mia were rarched and barren, and whirling winds bore across their yer dureless bosom clouds of chokinc dust, ths croak shrdnk back into his hiding place, and meditated upon the fact that there was no flower there to waste its sweetness on the desert ai,
 and in his opinion there never would
 be. And even now, when the whole land blooms as the rose and push ener
 gy, industry and capital are transfer ing the once barren plains into il veri0able paradise, there are yet those there, who prophecy that disaster will be the final winding up of all this hustle, business and prosperity. Those are the men who cursed the news papers for lying about the country. for inducing people to come in there and waste their money in buying land, planting orchards, vineyards and orange groves, and in building canals. The newspapers were responsible for bringing those people there aud it was Q wicked sin It is a happy thought that the Southern California croak who ciung to his original character istics is getting badly left, if he is not altogether overwhelmed by the maze of progress that surrounds him. Ari- zona has few; yet notwithstanding